First exhibition of ClubNCaldes

Last weekend we did our first N scale module exhibition. It was held in a small town called Sant Fost de Capcentelles, near Barcelona, by the shopkeepers association. This year they choose the slogan "Don't miss the train! Buy in San Fost,  local business". And they asked us to mount our modular layout during the whole weekend.

We were lucky to have a 14 meters long room to mount the layout, as it is exactly the total length of our modules together as we still don't have any curve module. We only had time to make two loops and eight straight ones, and now we have to produce more headers to build more modules. We plan to build some curved ones and a big train station.

The assembly and set up of the modules was pretty fast, it only took us 2 hours to have all them assembled and ready to run trains. There was no problem in the track alignment between modules, and trains ran in a very smooth way between modules. That was the first time we were mounting all our modules together, so the system is proved to be reliable.

It took a bit longer to have the digital part and Rocrail up and running as some modules were not tested and needed to be configured properly. The truth is in the last two weeks all of us had to finish many things and were quite stressed finding were to buy the skirt, how to fix it, installing the electronics in some modules, preparing the Rocrail plan, .....

But, I still don't know how, everything was ready and trains were able to run in automatic mode when the mayoress of Sant Fost came to open the exhibition:

The event was well attended and each of the members had also many visits from friends and familiars who never before had the chance to view the results of our hobby. During all this time I had my modules upside down, pending of decoration, and it was almost impossible to access the garage where I spent so many hours building them.

The digital system has been proved also to be reliable and easy to manage. All of us were able to use our tablet or smartphone to manage trains, lights or accessories of the whole layout. And even our youngest club member managed alone all the traffic with no problems. And everything built by us, only using Arduinos and Open Hardware and Open Software.

Here you can see a couple of videos, one of them recorded with an on-board camera:

We really spend a fantastic weekend, we are looking forward to organize a bigger train exhibition soon, with more modules for sure.

We want to thank this opportunity we had to San Fost mayoress, the Shopkeepers Associacition, and specially to Juan, the most active member of the club who prepared the complete event.

Thanks Juan!!!!

Module tests

I couldn't write any post in the last months but I was a little bit stressed trying to finish my two first modules. If you read previous posts, you know ClubNCaldes created its own digital normative for N scale modules. The base and module headers are according EuroN standards. But as there is no standard norm in N scale for digital exploitation, we created our own.

We have our first "public appearance" in less than one month and all club members were quite stressed in finishing the modules with an acceptable decoration, and also quite concerned about the technological part as we are making also our own electronics, despite all the system is fully compatible with Loconet and any Loconet device can be used. One of our main goals is to create an Open Source and Open Hardware digital system, but compatible with the main standards in the market.

Each of us had until now his own layout at home. Each one depending on the space restrictions of his home was building a bigger or smaller layout, but none of us has never finished it. There is people in this club investing time and money in his layout for more than 15 years, others less, but nobody has finished his layout. Probably is because none of us wants to face the question that would arise once the layout is finished: "And now, how should I continue my hobby??". Probably destroying it and starting again from scratch. I still remember when I placed last piece of track in my layout and closed the track circuit, and instead of being a happy day I was quite sad, because I realized I won't place any more piece of track in the future. And it was a pity as I had to go through many errors until I learned the good way to do it. But then I learned about modules, and today I would never start a traditional layout again.

Modules are an enclosed work of 91.5 x 40 cm (size is free, but this is a standard size for a module as it has the exact length of an straight Peco 55 track). Wiring is very simple if you don't want to install switches, and even with them you don't have to worry about current loops or short circuits as in our norms all this has been solved. And create a simple decoration in a board of this size is quite fast and very satisfactory. Because you see it finished very fast, you can always enhance the decoration, exchange modules, create and substitute them with newer ones with better designs, join your modules with your friends' ones and run long trains that will never fit in your layout.

And the fact is in July 11th we started building our module headers ordering them to a local professional woodworking company:

And this weekend, October 29th, that's what we accomplished:

You see the decoration theme is not uniform. Some of you may be was shocked seeing a JR Freight train from Japan crossing a Spanish RENFE. But over being a railroad club, ClubNCaldes is first a friends group and each member puts a remembrance, lived experience or personal image when building a module that deserves all the respect, so we decided not to have any type of restriction in decoration themes, epoch or rolling stock type. This makes our meetings even more funnier and interesting.

I have many photos stored to write more articles about the process of building and decorating those modules, I promise to do it soon.

Meanwhile I hope you like these videos and get inspired to create N scale modules like us.

Building a module (Part 1: Track)

In this post I want to show you how to build a simple straight module following our standards. First of all we need to build the wooden "box" that will be the base for our piece of the layout. If you read our norms there is a very important part (as in all modular norms) called "header". This is the wooden piece that connects with another module. As we are doing a straight module those pieces are in the East and West part of the module, but they can be placed in any part of our module where we want to connect to the following or previous one. It is also possible a module with more than two "headers" when diverging the track, or even just one in case it is an ending module with a loop.

In any case the "header" is the most important part and must be done with exact precision, so do not try to do it yourself using manual tools. Just half millimeter of error will cause trains to derail in our scale as tracks will not be aligned in a perfect way. So my suggestion is to go to a carpenter's workshop where they have a numerical control machine and pay for these pieces to be done following the measures in the manual. They can even make small holes to place and drive the screws to assemble the whole box.

Next important thing you need is the gauge, which is also defined in the manual. Gauges you see in the photo above have been laser cut and are made in stainless steel. They have the same exact precision as the headers. And finally you will need also a straight tracksetta from Peco available at any train shop offering Peco products.

Gauge is used to check several measures when placed in the gauge holes:

• At both sides shows the top limit of the header. It will check the header is correctly done.
• Inner slots show the base of the track (3mm over the top of the header) 
• The width of the inner slots is exactly the 9mm gap between rails, the same width as the tracksetta that will fit in this holes. Tracksetta combined with the gauge will assure the track is aligned, perpendicular to the header and at the exact height.

First of all we have to place the track bed. I like to use 3mm cork, but you have other solutions like Woodland Scenics track bed which is also 3mm height. In the last 5cm at each end of the module you should use a rigid track bed to make sure the track height is not altered. In my modules I cut a piece of 3mm PVC or methacrylate. Use the gauge to center it and glue it with carpenters glue or contact glue. The rigid pieces of PVC is better to glue them with cyanoacrylate or any other specific glue:

With the track bed fixed in place we can place the track using Peco pins. Use the Tracksetta to make sure the rail is completely straight and aligned with the gauge, and do not fix the last 10 cm of the track at both sides until the next step:

Then use a Dremel tool or similar to cut the rails if they stand out of the header limits:

Now you can put again the gauges at each side and center the track using the tracksetta. Tracksetta fits in the gauge gaps and makes sure the rail is perpendicular to the header, and with the tracksetta and gauge in place fix the last centimeters of track with both pins and cyanoacrylate:

You can see in the following photo how precise has been fixed the track:

In next steps I will show how to make the wiring and sensors.